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From Red Truck Beer in Vancouver comes their “Red Pilsner”. The beer pours an amber colour with an white head. The aroma consists of caramel, grainy malts and some floral hops. The flavour is of caramel, grains, some mild fruity notes with very little bitterness. The alcohol content comes in at 5%. If you are looking for an easy drinking lager with a bit more flavour to it this could be what you are looking for.

Commercial Description: We built this brew by hand with Czech pilsner yeast and a unique combination of black malts, malted wheat, and 100% simcoe hops. The addition of the roasted malts give it a distinctive reddish hue, while the slow process and cold storage temperatures closely resemble the winters this style of beer was originally brewed during.

From Red Truck Beer in Vancouver comes their “Midnight Run Dark Lager”. The beer pours a chestnut brown with a light brown head. The aroma consists of roasted malts, nuts and sweetness. The flavour is of roasted malts, nuts, earth, caramel, hint of dark fruit and a mild bitterness. The alcohol content comes in at 4.9%. This is a fairly basic dark lager but that is exactly what you would want from it anyways. Easy drinking and great for the winter months.

Commercial Description: Our Midnight Run Dark Lager was first made introduced as a limited edition beer in a 650ml bottle back in 2015. After all of raving reviews from consumers, and with the seasons changing, we just had to bring it back for everyone to take for a test drive.

It is October again and that means it was time for the 8th Annul BC Beer Awards. Once again the Beer Awards and festival were held at the Croatian Cultural Centre. This years festival landed on October 21st, 2017. The first 7 awards were held in a similar format with the festival happening at the same time as the awards with the announcements happening in the second half of the festival. This year the awards were held in a VIP hour that took place before the main doors opened.

I have been attending this event for many years now and it is one of the must attend events on the yearly calendar. I was lucky enough to be able to attend the awards portion of the event before the general public was let into the building. To me the most important part of the entire experience is the actual awards and that is one thing that I am not a big fan of with this years changes. luckily this was still an amazing event. The BC Beer Awards continue to grow every year with this having beer from 97 breweries and a total entries of 879. Last year for comparison was 83 breweries and 750 entries. The event started at 4pm for VIP’s and then opened up to the masses at 5pm. last call for the beer festival was at 9:45pm.

For the last few years Stephen Quinn of CBC Radio was the host of the awards but with a bad back he was unable to do the honors. This year Dan Burritt of CBC Radio took his place and did a wonderful job. I still hope one day 100% of the breweries will take part in this event as you never really know the best beer in the province if not everyone takes part. Lets get to the most important part, the winning beer!

CBC PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD

INNOVATOR OF THE YEAR – presented by Newlands Systems

This year had a few nice surprises with the winners. With the Best in Show being Flagship IPA from Steamworks Brewing the tides have turned a little bit towards creativity and not just following style guidelines for the BC Beer Awards. This year Boombox Brewing won CBC People’s Choice Award and Innovator of the Year went to Twin Sails Brewing. Both are very experimental breweries and leading the charge with great experimental brews. It was also amazing to see two rookie breweries win two huge awards. Brewery of the Year went to Mount Arrowsmith Brewing from the island and Rookie of the Year went to Backcountry Brewing out of Squamish.

The media got to enter at 3pm for a small media tour. Here are some photos from the media hour. The media tour was lead by Paul Pyne of DrinkSmarter.ca a Certified Cicerone and a member of the craft beer community.

Here are some of my photos of the event once it started. This year I took far less photos as I was busy recording audio for the Pacific Beer Chat episode. Here are the photos that I did take.

This year was once again an amazing year with even better beer both being served and winning awards. Here is to next years event!

From Red Truck Beer in Vancouver comes their “Wild Thing Blackberry Bourbon Ale”. The beer pours a deep red colour with a light redish white head. The aroma consists of blackberry with some slight woodiness. The flavour is of blackberry, wood, semi sweet with a very mild almost tart note and a really dry finish. The alcohol content comes in at 5.3% with an IBU of 25. This is not a huge bourbon barrel aged beer but a nice fruit ale with a hint of wood. This is a tasty brew that will appeal to more than just the beer geek.

Commercial Description: A fun experiment gone horribly right. It started with a mild ale and a plan to load it full of bourbon and peaches. When we realized we had missed the harvest, we shifted gears and used fresh Fraser Valley blackberries. After adding in the second case of bourbon and the last of the blackberries, we knew we had brewed up something special. This limited release ale brings together the sweet-tart flavour of Blackberry and the mellow woody finish of Kentucky bourbon. An extremely refreshing and well balanced seasonal beer. Brewed with locally sourced Fraser Valley blackberries, Kentucky bourbon and Pekko hops.

I was recently invited out to Red Truck Beer in Vancouver with some other media members to check out some of their new menu Items.

I have a bad habit of always being early to events and this was no different so I sampled their new Dry Nibbed Stout. While I didn’t take any notes on this beer I did quite enjoy it and it was probably my favourite of the ones I sampled.

Once the small group was rounded up we were taken on a short tour of the brewery. I was less interested in the technical side of the brewery as I have both done the tour and also know more about the brewing process than the rest of the group. I took the chance to take more photos.

This is the hood of the truck they dropped for their ground breaking

Once the tour was done we headed up to a private room that can be rented for events to taste some of their beer and their new food.

They started the tasting off with their 3 core beer and one winter seasonal. The beers were 1st the Lager, 3rd the Ale and 4th the IPA that rounded out their core lineup and 2nd their Pilsner their winter seasonal. Their mandate is to make flavourful but accessible beers. While I am not a big drinker of Lagers and Pilsners personally there is not doubt that they are making their mandate with well crafted easy drinking beers.

The new food includes their new Fish Sandwich that is battered and has fried tortilla’s making it almost a fish and chips sandwich. The next sample was a pulled pork sandwich that had nice ranch slaw on it. Next up was the pulled pork tacos a great tasting treat. The last thing we were able to sample was the bone out dry ribs. They were great with the spicy sauce they were served with. Even though I expected to like one of the pork dishes the best for me it was the Fish Sandwich that really hit the spot. It had everything you would want in a sandwich and more. Not to say anything bad about the other options as there were all really tasty and I would love to eat more of all of them.

Now they were not done with the great samples. The next thing they brought us was a sample of their brand new beer floats. This one used their Blackberry Bourbon Ale and some really tasty ice cream. They also gave us a sample of the Blackberry Bourbon Ale without ice cream to compare. Personally I cant wait to get back and try a full sized beer float! This little sample was to die for.

Now while we where up in a private room for this tasting the Truck Stop Diner got really busy and shows just how popular a spot this is to hang out. They also have a growler bar and off sales location at the front door. If you have not made it out to Red Truck Beer yet what are you waiting for?